Amerika Bomber

[Westy]

"The world's first intercontinental bomber."

NOT. a marine recce plane doing one stripped down, long range recce mission suddenly becomes an
intercontinental bomber? lol.

The B-29 was defacto the first true intercontinental bomber and the Axis had nothing that could
approach it's performance be it range, speed, payload etc.  the JU-390 was a wanna be.

[Angus]

Maybe the Germans were dabbling with the idea that the USA would rect as slowly to an air raid as to the submarine attacks, maybe...

[Puck]

Maybe the Germans were dabbling with the idea that the USA would rect as slowly to an air raid as to the submarine attacks, maybe...

I think it's more along the lines of giving someone a bloody nose and see if they still have the desire to fight.  The V1/V2 were terror weapons, but by the time they became available the English were committed and it was too late.  The biggest military in the world is useless if you don't have the will to use it.

Personally I don't think the Germans were nuts, they were trying to bluff their way out with high tech wizardry. 

[BigPlay]

It's a deluded fantasy that had a snowball's chance in hell of being what the Nazi's wanted it to be.

That's all you need to know. It was a design on paper (one of tens of thousands at the end of the war) where any radical, outlandish idea was entertained by Hitler and his cronies to fight back in a losing war. Had they the pilots, I'm sure they would have gone kamikaze, like the Japanese (they even tried ramming units, but not many did the deed).

 Oscar Boesh was a pilot in one of these ramming units. I have spoken to him at 2 symposiums about his time in the Luftwaffe. He told me ramming was a last ditch resort. The oath that was taken by said pilots was that they were to make sure that they at least shot 1 bomber down per sortie, If you ran out of ammo then ramming was the only choice, However ramming a bomber was not meant to be an act of  suicide. The pilot was suppose to ram the tail of the bomber and bail out.

[Guppy35]

I remembered it from a book I read as a kid as the "New York" bomber.  Took me a while  to find to book.  Me264.  only 2 made it to completion.  One destroyed on the ground at Lechfield in 44 and the other destroyed at the Messerschmitt factory.  The 3rd was never completed.

4 engine bird.

[bj229r]

I'm guessing we started working on the B36 about the same time (They've got one in Dayton, DWARFS the B52) Was it able to hit Europe from US soil?

[Chalenge]

Except as a deterrent I think the B36 was pretty much a failure but at least it never had to fight. When it first came out no fighter could reach it and when some were developed that could they could not manuever with it or fire their guns without falling out of the sky. One question I have is did the status of the reports on nukes dropped into British Columbia or New Mexico ever become declassified? That would make some good reading maybe.

[Serenity]

I'm guessing we started working on the B36 about the same time (They've got one in Dayton, DWARFS the B52) Was it able to hit Europe from US soil?

That's the one with the six-foot tunnel in it's wings, correct?

[bj229r]

That's the one with the six-foot tunnel in it's wings, correct?

negative, 6 engines, all pushers...was used in Korean era as nuke carrier

[Serenity]

negative, 6 engines, all pushers...was used in Korean era as nuke carrier(Image removed from quote.)

"The scale of the B-36 can be best appreciated by considering the 2.13m/7ft-high tunnel that passed withing the wings to allow inflight maintenance of the outer engines."

The Complete Guide to Fighters and Bombers of the World, Francis Crosby, Hermes Publishing, London, 2006,
Page 429

[Chalenge]

The B36 was also a step backwards in some small measure due to the amount of magnesium in its structure. Every one of them that crashed also burned so you can imagine what a good cannon hit would do to it.

[bj229r]

"The scale of the B-36 can be best appreciated by considering the 2.13m/7ft-high tunnel that passed withing the wings to allow inflight maintenance of the outer engines."

The Complete Guide to Fighters and Bombers of the World, Francis Crosby, Hermes Publishing, London, 2006,
Page 429

I stand corrected---from your description, I was picturing something like in that Indiana Jones movie

[Motherland]

B36 vs B29



Later versions of the B36 added 4 jet engines to the 6 pushers-

[Serenity]

I stand corrected---from your description, I was picturing something like in that Indiana Jones movie

lol. Yeah, I had trouble (still do) picturing that tunnel lol. I think it was only in the jet-equipped model's, as it says the "outer" engines...

[Puck]

lol. Yeah, I had trouble (still do) picturing that tunnel lol. I think it was only in the jet-equipped model's, as it says the "outer" engines...

A tunnel isn't going to help you get though the pylons into the turbines.  If you want to look at engines, you need to look at engines that live inside wings.  If you want to look at the turbines, land and open the inspection covers.